On August 6th, 1993 and 1999

Does not compute.

On August 6, 1993 and 1999:

Tony Gwynn had good days.

It’s been fun watching the Braves-Padres games over the past few days as Joe Simpson and Boog Sciambi continually asked themselves what Tony Gwynn says when his son comes up/gets a hit/gets an out/makes a play in the field and if he remains impartial or not. They’re not being critical, merely curious. It seems as though it would be fairly easy for media guys to get tapes from the broadcasts to fast forward to the right points in the game to find out exactly what he says. From the fact that they kept talking about it, I’m guessing they never did.

Anyway, Tony Gwynn, Sr. was a pretty good player. He had a .338/.388/.459 line for his career, good enough for a 132 OPS+ as a center fielder/right fielder. For his career, he had 3,141 hits, which seems a bit too small considering how well he hit and how little he walked, and he was widely considered one of the best hitters in the game. Some people swear he would have hit .400 in 1994 without the strike, and he had several other years with averages over .350. What always surprises me about him though is that he stole so many bases early in his career. I just have a much different image of him. Shows you what not being fully conscious until 1995 does to you.

Anyway, August 6th seems to have been one heckuva day for Gwynn. On August 6th, 1993, he had a really nice day, hitting well in two games. In the first, he went 3-for-3 with a couple intentional walks, and in the second, he went 2-for-5. Along the way, he picked up his 2,000th hit. Six years later, he went 4-for-5, and somewhere in there, he got his 3,000th hit.